


Candy Hearts

by stumphclub



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Soul Punk - Patrick Stump (Album)
Genre: Birthday Party, Fluff, M/M, Mystery, Party, Peterick, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26207452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stumphclub/pseuds/stumphclub
Summary: Patrick gets all sorts of gifts for his birthday, but one is a bag of candy hearts, and not the usual kind. Who in their right mind leaves a message in candy hearts?
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15
Collections: Peterick Fic Recs - tumblr list, Peterick Fluff





	Candy Hearts

_ “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”  _ Patrick wouldn’t consider himself  _ popular  _ at any rate, but the sea of faces in front of him upon opening the door seemed to be challenging that notion. He broke into a sheepish grin and his signature “You guys shouldn’t have, wow.”, before being swept into the crowd for drinks and birthday kisses and hugs. Vicky, Gabe, Ryan, Pete, William, Joe… the line of well wishes seemed endless on his way to the liquor table. 

Upon arrival, it seemed fitting that their straight-edge friend of the group was taking care to not over serve anyone at the party. Andy grinned upon the sight of Patrick finally making his way through the trees of tall friends, greeting him with a hug and a peck on the cheek. “The man of the hour,” Andy said fondly, “Happy birthday, Patrick. What can I get you to drink?”

“Thank you kindly,” Patrick returned his cheek kiss, leaning against the table and scanning the plethora of booze. “I’ll have a scotch on the rocks, I think.” 

“Coming right up.” 

After much dancing, laughing, singing, jamming, and drinking, Patrick was steered towards a pile of gifts by Gabe. “Oh my  _ God,  _ you guys  _ really  _ shouldn’t have!” he exclaimed, a little flushed from both the booze and the attention. ‘And-Oh, you  _ bastards _ .” he said to a response of chuckles. “These aren’t labeled! How will I know who to thank for what?”

“Patrick, that’s kind of what the element of surprise is.” Gabe laughed, pushing a chair behind his friend, more or less forcing him into a sitting position in order to tackle the beast that was the pile of presents. 

“Jesus. Who’s idea was this, anyway?” Patrick moaned to a chorus of chuckles.

When the beast was tamed, Patrick was left with a variety of gifts ranging from guitar strings to records to classic movies and, the strangest gift of them all, a bag of candy hearts. “This is why I wanted to know who the gifts came from.” Patrick said woefully to his closest friend, Pete, “So that I could ask whoever gave me these candy hearts what the hell they were thinking.”

Pete laughed. “Aw, Trick, you know that’s the name of the game. I don’t know why surprises bother you so much.” He gave Patrick’s shoulder a squeeze.

“I don’t know why  _ nothing  _ bothers you,” Patrick retorted, “Aren’t you even a little bit curious what this means?”

“Not particularly. They look pretty normal to me,” Pete chuckled, inspecting the bag and then shrugging. “I guess it’s a mystery.” 

\--

With Patrick’s birthday having come and gone, Pete and Andy had long since helped Patrick clean up the birthday disaster, knowing he did not ask for the morning of disarray after a surprise party. Everything had settled, Patrick was a year older, and now that the festivities were over, he could focus on writing once again. He was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune and felt his work catching up to him after what seemed like too much partying. He was finally alone with his thoughts and research, having found places in his apartment for all of the birthday gifts he had received-except for those odd candy hearts. Instead, he kept those on his desk in his study, having yet to dip into them for a snack. 

When he eventually decided to open the bag of candy hearts and picked out the first one, he took a quick look at it and then did a double take. All it said was ‘this’. “What kind of candy hearts are these?” Patrick mumbled aloud to himself, confused. He popped it into his mouth anyway and let the chalky sweetness melt away as he pored over research pertaining to his latest assignment. He quickly forgot about the candy as he spiralled into the rabbit hole of information, taking notes and reading with interest. 

By the time Patrick sat back to stretch and look at the clock, three hours had passed. “Huh.” he muttered, surprised by himself and his ability to get caught up in the material at hand. “Guess it’s break time.” His eyes were drawn to the bag of candy hearts, sitting pastel and colourful amongst his tidy brass trinkets. He picked up the bag of candy and studied it with mistrust before opening it and taking out another heart. This one said ‘love’. He shrugged, only slightly wary, and popped it into his mouth, letting it melt. ‘Love’. That was normal for a heart candy, right? Or was it? Didn’t candy hearts usually have  _ full  _ love messages on them? ‘This’ definitely didn’t belong alone on a candy heart, so now he was second guessing again. 

Frustrated by the mystery, Patrick ended up getting a plate from the kitchen before returning to the study and dumping the contents of the candy bag onto the blue patterned porcelain. He took his time flipping over the candies so that they were all face up and upright. It didn’t take a mastermind to realize that these were no ordinary candy hearts. Patrick sighed and suppressed rolling his eyes, annoyed that he’d been given not only candy, but a secret message that required time and effort to solve, for his birthday. Whoever gifted this to him was clearly inconsiderate. 

And yet, he was tempted to try and unravel the message because, really, who in their right mind would take the time to get custom candy hearts made into a hidden message? Upon scanning over the chalky sugar, he confirmed there was no name among them to expose the gifter. All too clever. 

After a mental battle, sighing again and reluctantly deciding to accept the challenge, Patrick started to try to make sense of the candy. How many had he eaten again? Two? Three? He’d eaten a ‘this’ and a ‘love’. Had he also eaten a ‘you’? No, no, he had eaten two, so he was missing two words from the message. He pulled out his yellow legal pad and penned the two eaten words at the top right corner of the pad to add in later. 

It took a long time, but much like his research, Patrick found himself lost in trying to decipher the message written in candy hearts. Some things were almost too easy to put together. ‘I know you hate surprises’? Yeah, duh, all of his friends and his friends’ mothers and his friends’ mothers’ dogs knew he hated surprises. He also pieced together an ‘I love you’ early on. Did someone actually love him, or was this all just one big practical joke meant to waste his time?

Words started filling out the legal pad as Patrick switched candies around until they made sense, scratching out errors in his notes and re-scribing phrases once he was sure he had certain sentences figured out. Some phrases were harder for Patrick to come to terms with. “Nothing comes as easy as what?” he scoured the pieces, “Parking?” He grumbled doubtfully. Eventually had to come to terms with the idea that the answer was the word ‘you’. But there was no way someone could think so highly of him, let alone in this regard. He felt embarrassed and humbled, having to accept that he, Patrick, was the ‘you’, and the ‘you’ was the piece that fit.

Patrick’s cheeks started to burn as he made his way through the riddle. They flushed dark red when he finished putting together two sentences in particular. He made no mistake when he put the words ‘teenage’ and ‘vow’ together, followed by a key phrase, his mind racing. There was only one person he’d ever whispered those words to in a secret starlit nirvana. 

Given the clue, he started to think in the cryptic mindset of the one he suspected to be the culprit. The words quickly started crashing into each other like waves, easily sticking together like starved magnets. Patrick barely even realized he was holding his breath as he arranged the final candies into their places. Looking over at his notepad, he drew arrows to reflect where he had moved some sentences up or down to better fit the stanzas, having rearranged them until they told a story Patrick was  _ sure  _ only two souls would ever be able to decipher the plot of. And yet, the plot was linear and made perfect sense to him. He transcribed the organized sentences once more onto a fresh sheet of paper. 

Sitting back, Patrick’s eyes pored over the freshly penned love letter, raking through the words over and over again as if trying to make sense of them, but he already knew. His free hand absentmindedly fingered at the missing space where the ‘love’ candy that he ate would’ve rested.

“I know you hate surprises. It was my idea. But nothing comes as easy as you. I hope I didn’t let you down.

“I know it’s just a number, but you’re the eighth wonder, and you are the last good thing about this part of town. 

“Do you remember our teenage vow in a parking lot? In the back of my car? ‘Till tonight do us part,’ we always said.

“We turned off the lights, we turned off the shyness, because all of our moves made up for the silence, and I’ve never been able to get that out of my head.

“What if I don’t want it to be that way anymore, denial and drunken shame? What if I want you to see me? What if I’m not scared? Are you?

“I used to wanna scream I love you from the top of my lungs, but I was afraid that you would hear me. And all these years later, I still love you. If you know who I am, I hope you’ll love me too.” 

Patrick stared at the poetry, gripping the fresh sheet of yellow paper for at least twenty minutes. It was only when water started dripping on the paper and smudging the ink that he was snapped back to his senses. No, not water. His own tears. Patrick moved his hand from the desk to wipe his tears, dragging his knuckles across his face. His fingertips rested on his cheek. He was smiling. Grinning, even. Grinning so wide and weeping, unable to stop because yes, he should’ve known from the start. There was only one idiot that was smart enough to get custom made candies with a wildly cryptic message as a way to profess his love.  _ And  _ throw a surprise party on top of that…  _ and  _ make sure none of the gifts were labelled. Patrick found himself actually laughing out loud through his tears. A present that seemed so stupid-that he even considered throwing in the trash!-now seemed like the only gift of importance. 

\--

Patrick threw on a scarf to ward off any leftover April chills and left his house clutching the piece of yellow stationary with the cleanly deciphered love note, and only the handful of heart candies that he would need to pull this off. He wiped his face once more as he got into his car, his breaths finally steadying, but there was no way anyone could wipe the stupid goofy smile off of his face. 

At the doorstep of Pete’s house, Patrick pulled the little porch table in front of the door and laid out the piece of paper on the table facing the door. In the same fashion, he carefully placed just four candy hearts at the base of the paper before knocking on the door and wringing his hands nervously.

The door opened and Pete beamed at Patrick, opening with, “Hey bud-” before stopping short upon the sight of the porch table between them. He carefully picked up the yellow stationary, eyes mulling it over with knowing. He took his time, as if he were afraid to look at the candied response and Patrick stood there, feeling as if he were sweating bullets in anticipation. 

After what felt like a decade had passed, Pete’s gaze fell to the candies and his mouthline slowly crept upwards as he silently formed the words spelled out in sugar, “I love you too.” Finally, his eyes met Patrick’s, both filled with nerves as well as yearning. 

Pete let out a joyous burst of laughter as he pushed the little table aside and closed the space between them, throwing his arms around Patrick and kissing him with fervour. It was the first time they had kissed in daylight where prying eyes had easy access, and one of the only times they’d kissed while sober. Their teenaged starlit weed-dazed one-off had turned into many “just this once”s, and it followed them into adulthood, haunted them in drunken closets with their short-lived girlfriends skulking in the next room over. Time and time again. 

But now both of their hearts lay out in the open, raw and beating harder than ever, and Patrick matched Pete’s kiss with great need. His hands tangled into the front of Pete’s shirt, twisting the material and pulling him closer as Pete’s hands scoured Patrick’s face. His fingers danced across Patrick’s cheeks and through his hair, Pete’s hands finding their way down his neck and back until they were on Patrick’s ass, making him laugh as they tumbled inside. The porch table lay knocked over and forgotten, the four candy hearts strewn across the ground, and the yellow paper barely having made its way inside lay on the floor by the front door. 

Patrick and Pete kissed heavily, holding onto each other for all the time they had missed or doubted or denied. They fell to the couch, Pete straddling Patrick with his hands creeping up his shirt to rest on Patrick’s soft chest before they finally broke the kiss. Panting slightly and resting his forehead against Patrick’s, Pete smirked. “You know, I’m impressed.” he said, “I can’t believe you actually got it. And so quickly, too.” He lovingly rubbed his nose against Patrick’s.

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Did you really have any doubts?”

Pete just laughed, gleeful. “No. Besides, riddles were always your strong suit and we have so much lost time to catch up on. I’m thinking sex on a beach in the middle of the day, no?” 

Patrick laughed and smacked his chest, “I hope you mean the drink variety,” he joked, hooking his elbow behind Pete’s neck and pulling him down into another deep kiss. Upon receiving Pete’s heart wrapped up in candy hearts, he doubted he’d deny Pete of anything ever again. 

**Author's Note:**

> jeez, finally continuing the alphabet challenge because it's quarantimes and bandom is not dead, right?


End file.
